Pope Francis: Why This ‘Exodus’ From Church?

Pope Francis, in a stunningly candid assessment of the state of the Catholic Church, said on Saturday it should look in the mirror and ask why so many people are leaving the faith of their fathers.

On the penultimate day of his trip to Brazil, Francis delivered a long address to the country’s bishops in which he suggested elements of what could become a blueprint for stopping what he called an “exodus.”

“I would like all of us to ask ourselves today: are we still a Church capable of warming hearts?” he said in a speech remarkable for its frankness about the hemorrhaging of the Church in many countries.

The Argentine pope, who is in Rio for a Catholic international jamboree known as World Youth Day, referred to what he called “the mystery of those who leave the Church” because they think it “can no longer offer them anything meaningful or important.”

The Church has been losing members throughout the world to secularism and to other religions, including in Latin America, where evangelical groups have won over many converts.

He acknowledged that many people see the Church as a “relic of the past,” too caught up in itself, and a “prisoner of its own rigid formulas.”

While he said the Church “must remain faithful” to its religious doctrine, it had to be closer to the people and their real problems.

“Today, we need a Church capable of walking at people’s side, of doing more than simply listening to them,” he said.

“At times we lose people because they don’t understand what we are saying, because we have forgotten the language of simplicity and import an intellectualism foreign to our people,” he said.

It’s a question all Christians in the West — Catholic or not, liberal or conservative — should ask ourselves. People are falling away. We know that. I don’t think it’s entirely the fault of the churches; we know from Scripture that some people are more receptive to the Gospel than others, and we know that secular modernity offers unique philosophical challenges to hearing the Gospel. The Christian Church isn’t in need of lectures about what it ought to be doing from people who have absolutely no interest in taking anything it has to say seriously in the first place, and who wouldn’t bother showing up even if the Church did everything it demanded. It is in the Church’s interest to listen to people who are in principle open to the Church’s message, but for whatever reasons find it hard to accept.

Still, I’m not sure what the Pope means when he talks about the Church being so hung up on doctrines that it doesn’t relate to the real life of its people. As an American Catholic, I found myself wanting more doctrine from priests, and for doctrine to be more a part of the Catholic ethos. It rarely ever was. In my experience — and granted, North America is not the whole world — the idea that the Church’s priests were so caught up in doctrine and legalism that they were not in touch with the needs of the people is questionable. The Pope is right to say that the faith is not only about doctrine and legalism — but is that really what troubles the Church in our country? Isn’t it more the case that believers lack for leadership presents that doctrine in a way that makes it accessible and relevant to real life — if it bothers to teach it at all? It’s a false choice to say that either one has a rigid, cold intellectualism, or a doctrine-free, Church-Of-What’s-Happening-Now emotionalism.

Now, I don’t think the Pope is suggesting that that is the only choice, and besides, he was speaking in Latin America, which for all I know faces different pastoral challenges than North America does. But what do the Pope’s words mean for North American Catholics? What do the Pope’s words mean for other Christians? Talk to me.

UPDATE: Note this comment on the thread from J_A:

As a Latin American who moved into the US in the late 90s (when I was in my late 30s), I can tell you that I see very little in common between the issues the Catholic church confronts and engages here and there.

In Latin America, the Church focus is -or is expected to be- on social issues: poverty, economic exclusion, political oppression, education, health. The cultural wars that obsess us in the US take second place to more urgent challenges.

Historically,probably until V2, the Latin American Catholic church was seen as a bastion of privilege and reaction, a supporter of the local oligarchies. By the time I was growing up, the Church had shifted its position, and became a voice for the economically and politically powerless. The popularity of and the respect accorded to the Church as an institution soared.

However, both in the old times of a reactionary church, and in the new era of a socially conscious church, Catholicism has always been mainly cultural. It was/is something you had to do on Sundays, but religion was not something you LIVED on your daily the way you, Rod, and others here seem to understand it. In exchange for God’s basic protection, you fulfilled certain duties, but your obligations towards God were understood to be limited, and mostly relegated to women and children. Men weren’t really required to attend

Nowadays, I think modernity is coming to the slums of Latin America. Some people -most of them- don’t see any particular presence of God in their daily life. They are happy with the Church’s social work, but don’t see much the point of religion.

And for the (quite large) minority that really long for more religion, they seem to find it elsewhere in sincretic cults like santeria in its many variations all over the continent, or in evangelical churches with more than a whiff of prosperity gospel. Again, what most of this people look for is not a religion of the telos, but a source of spiritual power that they can channel to solve their problems in the physical world (get a job, get laid, get cured, get your enemies fired from work or sick). This spirituality, for which there is plenty of demand, the Church cannot cater to.

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94 Responses to Pope Francis: Why This ‘Exodus’ From Church?

The church at the parochial and prelatial level is very afraid of engaging in pervasive spiritual dryness and dark nights of the senses and the soul.

Very well said. That’s why too much of American Christianity across the board deals in nothing but cliches. People are afraid to confront the pain within themselves. Some of them believe God caused that pain. What they don’t know is that the God who created the universe and humanity understands that pain far, far more profoundly and pervasively than people understand. He is the only truly trustworthy Being. He is the Quintessence of Purity. That means His fundamental characteristics (mercy, love, righteousness, justice, etc.) do not contradict but complement each other.

God loves humanity far beyond what we can comprehend.

This is not “morally therapeutic deism,” Rod. This is fact.

Too many churches sacrificed their spiritual patrimony on the altar of various agendas: political power, social activism, secular prestige, wealth, intellectual fashion, popularity. They are the poorer for it. So are too many of their adherents.

Christian “leaders” in the West must re-gain the sense of awe and wonder at who God really is. They must teach who God really is. They must re-acquaint themselves with a God who will never abandon nor forsake those who follow Him, a God who will never break the bruised reed nor extinguish the smoldering wick, a God whose own Son experienced all of humanity’s worst yet not only did not sin but acts as the Heavenly High Priest for all who embrace Him.

Christian “leaders” must stop making God fit their own academic, theological, ritualistic and liturgical (or non-liturgical) boxes. Otherwise, they set themselves up as demigods — which, probably, was their intention to begin with.

Let people read the true history of the Reformation – hatred, violence, bloodshed, murders, all at the behest of and with the personal involvement and approval of both Protestant and Catholic leaders, and see how many could believe in the truthfulness of such churches ever again. No wonder this has been sanitized – in a modern age, when information is not so easily controlled, it is inevitable that as more find out the real history, they will leave in droves.

Honored founders like Luther, Calvin, Knox, Zwingli and the Popes are among the bloodthirstiest of historical criminals, zealous for their god, no doubt, but a Moloch who certainly bore no resemblance to Christ.

As someone who grew up catholic in Chicagoland and went to catholic grade school–if I had had more doctrine shoved down my throat, I would just have disregarded the church even more and faster than I did already.

In fact, the more I actually have read into the doctrine of the church, the more appalled I have become. I was more sympathetic to Jesus BEFORE I read the gospels–because he seemed–acc. to my liberal catholic upbringing–to be a cool guy who actually wanted people to be nice to each other.

Then I read Matthew and Mark and thought that he was a misogynist jerk.

Maybe some people think the Church should be more gung-ho about their beliefs and that will get more people to believe–but I’m not so sure. I don’t know if there really is a “cure” for what ails all of these churches–and–as a non-believer who’s seen so much hatred and violence done to ones I love in the name of various versions of the Christian faith–I don’t know if I’d really want any of them to survive as more than minor clubs doing their own thing.

In the end–I actually admire Francis as a massive improvement over both bennedict & John Paul, but it’s not like anything he says is going to make me believe in a supernatural entity. I hope catholicism improves itself, and helps do good in the world–but it’s not like I think it’s the only way for this to happen..

Blindfella wrote:Which again calls into question the inscrutable wisdom of the venerable cardinals who elected a 76 year old man with one lung; who speaks no other languages than spanish and italian;

He also fluent German and of course has knowledge of Latin. If Wikipedia is to be believed (I know a very big if) he also has some basic knowledge in French, Portuguese English, Ukrainian and Piedmontese.

I can only speak for myself. I left the Church because of the corruption exposed by the pedophilia scandal and the fact that so much of the leadership in this country became mouthpieces for the Republican party focused only on abortion. The beautiful notion of the seamless garment was ignored in favor or persecuting nuns who devote themselves to working with the poor instead of exclusively objecting to abortion. Sad, sad, sad. I admire those who hang in there hoping to see the church change. Perhaps Pope Francis will bring much needed change. I hope so.

Not a Catholic, wasn’t raised religiously, but Catholicism is/was the religion of my extended family for about as long as the Catholic Church has existed. I can’t think of anyone in my family under the age of 60 that still identifies as Catholic, let alone in any meaningful way (such as actually attending Mass, going to confession, etc.). If you can indulge the observations of a non-Catholic:

What I understood her to be saying was that to be Catholic in her part of Mexico, at least, was to be burdened by fatalism.

I should probably bold that rather than italicize it. That’s a very astute observation, and it holds true for an increasing number of Sicilian- and Italian-American people too—folks who could traditionally be relied upon by the Catholic Church, and for the same reason. My uneducated assumption about the RCC ossification of the Gospel is that it happened sometime during the course of feudalism, where the Church became an institution that taught people how to “take their lumps” rather than change their lives. Fatalism figures prominently in Sicilian culture, but my people aren’t in Sicily anymore—we’re in America, and America is many things but not fatalistic. Everyone in my family that still identifies as Christian has moved on to a Pentecostal church, mostly because it offers more hope and provides more community in their lives.

(I’m gonna go ahead and note here that I don’t relate to the discussion of MTD on this blog. That must be a rich-kid thing; it isn’t operable in the world I maneuver in. Most people aren’t living blissed-out lives indulging wide varieties of sensual pleasures, seeking personal (isolated, individualistic) fulfillment. They’re struggling to keep a roof over their head and food on the table in seriously trying economic times. Their only form of safety net is being able to set back a little bit of money from their own earnings, which has been touch-and-go for years, with on-again, off-again unemployment (or underemployment), with any savings immediately eaten up by the next emergency. They don’t work in jobs that are deeply meaningful and sources of “personal fulfillment”—they work at jobs where their bosses (and customers, if they’re service-industry workers) treat them like crap, and if they’re not in a union they’re woefully underpaid. The causes of divorce in my environs aren’t boredom and “seeking personal fulfillment”. They’re domestic violence, substance abuse, and infidelity. Now, I haven’t seen that Pentecostal churches are any better about being a change-agent on those issues than any other church, but they at least see those issues as problems worthy of addressing and offer their parishioners help. They don’t hold to (what I derisively call) omerta about it. (denial helps so much! *snort.*) Basically, what I see is that the RCC is willing to help those who are absolutely on their last legs—the abject poor who are homeless and who would be starving if it wasn’t for the soup kitchen and food pantry. Nothing for the working class who would like to avoid falling that far down the rabbit hole. In steps the Pentecostals. It also helps that their ministers tend to lead the same kind of lives their parishioners do—they are married (or divorced), with kids, and have a full-time job other than preaching.) In short, most people who identify as Christians really emphasize the healing aspect of Jesus, and if their church doesn’t offer anything of the kind they’re going to vote with their feet and find one that does.)

talk about placing burdens on the people and not lifting a finger to lighten them!

Erin Manning, you are so right about this one! Ok, so I’m not Catholic, but my mother returned to the church (before she was diagnosed with cancer), and I’ve accompanied by mom (and/or my grandmothers) to Mass before. I was struck by how family-unfriendly the various Catholic churches seemed to be. After my daughter was born, she came with me on those trips, and it was then that I experienced how hostile and unwelcoming that particular denomination is to single mothers (oh boy do I have some stories…..after one memorable incident I told my mom she’d have to find another escort. She understood.) But…even for married parents—the gulf between the so-called pro-family talk and the actual accommodation of families in the live of the church may as well have been the Grand Canyon.

It seems that what you mean by “fun” is more “community” than “entertainment”. My experience is that most people’s church-going decisions are based much more on relationships than on doctrine.

Yes. I continue to be mystified at the idea of religious-experience-as-castor-oil. Again, most people are not self-serving “hedonists”; they’re struggling folks who don’t have a lot of opportunity for community or joy. And when they experience the sacred, the divine…they don’t experience it as miserable, angry, or boring. Why should they expect that from church? Since it isn’t what drove them to church to begin with?

The are two responses to Fr Barron. The first is that organizations that don’t have to worry about members leaving won’t have an incentive to solve their problems. The second is that his argument is irrelevant, people who believe they can vote with their feet won’t listen.

Actually, I think the problems of the Catholic Church in both the northern and Southern hemispheres sound exactly the same. If persons in Latin America turn towards Pentecostalism or other forms of evangelic Protestantism because they think it gives them personal power to put curses on their enemies, then it’s no different than what we find in North America. As David Frum once put in “Dead Right” the religion one finds in U.S megachurches is the kind where “God can make you rich.” “God can make you successful.” “God can improve your sex life.” Why would it be any different? All the missionaries come from the U.S.!

Of course all this feeds back to individual, doesn’t it? God is basically a power source for your own desires and wishes. So you when go belly up or your wife divorces you or you suffer personal tragedy what then? Why would have God abandoned you even though your faithful? When the Pentecostals can’t answer those questions, then you get the securalist and the atheist.

I don’t dismiss the feeling of personal connection with the divine that people want. Many Catholics feel it in the Latin Mass and I’m sure the Orthodox feel it in their rituals as well. Vatican II’s biggest mistake was trading this away to allow the mass to be interpreted the way any priest or bishop wished to, which only led to confusion and the ridiculous (Polka Mass anyone? Rap Mass?).

The church’s revival will come combining the mystical with the personal. You can a sense of awe and power in the ritual and fellowship and charity. They’re not mutually exclusive. The first time I saw Pope Francis it reminded me of Pope John Paul I, the smile, that wonderful smile. What the Church could have become had he lived I do not know, but I seem to recall the words of former President that seem relevant: “People don’t care what you know until they know that you care.” I think that’s why Christ called the Pharisees, who were very big into doctrine by the way, “Snakes and sons of snakes.” Being against abortion makes no difference if you molest children or let abusers go free in your dioceses.

By the way, so-called conservatives and traditionalists who criticize this Pope will be admonished for this disloyalty and disobedience by the pantsuited nun who they held up as model of dissent.

Then I read Matthew and Mark and thought that he was a misogynist jerk.

What a pity that Christ failed to live up to your modern 21st century American ideals. I hope that you might one day find a god worthy of you.

All right: that was not terribly kind of me. But that kind statement invariably raises my hackles. It is bad enough to see this kind of chronological snobbery toward the perceived moral failings of past generations; it’s worse to see it attributed to Christ. But perhaps I ought to give you credit for not simply ignoring or interpreting away all the uncomfortable sayings and actions of Christ, as so many Christians – usually liberal ones (that being the real temptation of our age), but others as well.

I don’t know what it was you found misogynistic about Christ, who was so profoundly open to the women of his age (in a way that scandalized some Jews). But allow me to suggest the danger of a kind of chronological phariseeism. “I thank thee, Lord, that I am not so benightedly patriarchal, sexist, and bigoted as people of past dark ages; I recycle, and donate to LGBT causes and vote for pro-choice candidates.” But it could be the Christ demonstrated a greater appreciation for the dignity of women (and men) than our age appreciates, or is itself capable of – that doesn’t just measure their worth by the title on their business card.

“When the Church opted for the poor, the poor opted for the Pentecostals.” – old Latin American joke

99.9% of the homilies Catholics hear from their priests on Sunday morning can be summarized as “Jesus was a nice guy so let’s all be nice to each other too.” I can’t recall ever hearing a non-Traditionalist priest giving a good old fashioned doctrinal sermon. If the message of the Church is “be a nice guy like Jesus,” then it won’t take the people long to figure out that you don’t need God or the Church to be a nice guy who volunteers at the soup kitchen once in a while.

This is not a uniquely Roman problem. People across the spectrum are leaving the religious traditions that have been so pervasive in our culture from the earliest days of Western civilization. Many of these people were never regenerate in the first place and as the social costs of being publicly irreligious have diminished the incentive to show up to religious functions on a weekly basis has evaporated. Likewise many regenerate Christians are seeing little of value and even less in terms of Biblical support for traditional religious observations. Institutions that are mainly interested in self-preservation have very little support from Scripture and likewise have little to offer in terms of ministry for a post-Christendom world. We should not bemoan their passing but should focus instead of preparing the woefully unprepared church to minister outside of the cozy confines of our sacred buildings and religious traditions.

Re: Then I read Matthew and Mark and thought that he was a misogynist jerk.

I cannot see where Jesus behaved like a misogynist jerk anywhere in the gospels. Not always polite, true, but there’s no misogyny. And beside the minor rudeness he showed to, say, the Canaanite woman, the vehemence with he denounced the religious authorities of his day is far more pronounced.
Either someone has an extraordinarily nit-picky definition of misogyny, or someone did not read what s/he claimed to have read.

MH, I remember sitting in the hot tub asking Jesus about the fig thing and he said, “I was having a bad day. They stuck me on that damned donkey making me look like an absolute fool and people were waving sticks at me. So I got pissed and forgot that figs were out of season. It happens.”

Several years ago a dear pastor of ours announced that he was going to hear confessions one Advent weekday evening, beginning at a certain time and going on until he’d heard all the confessions (which he thought would take an hour or so). We decided to go, even though we go on Saturdays at least once every other month most of the time (and I prefer once a month when we can). My brother and sister-in-law decided to come too so we could help watch their little ones when it was there turn.

We almost had an accident on the way there, which slowed us down, but when we got there a few minutes after the start time the church was packed. I mean packed with the line reaching from the confessional around the walls of the church and then snaking in and out of the pews.

Father valiantly heard confessions for–if I recall correctly–nearly four hours, but before he got to our family he came out and announced that he’d only be able to be there for ten more minutes (it was nearly 11 p.m.). We went ahead and left at that point since I knew we could return on Saturday, and I knew from conversing with some people near me that this was their first, frightened attempt to “get right with God” in years.

Priests: if you offer it, they will come. And if they don’t come, offer it anyway, and lead by example.

Re: I’d be more interested in hearing a call for every priest with the proper faculties to hear confessions for 3 hours a week

The problem is, Would anyone come?

Actually, in my observation (admittedly an unrepresentative sample), if people know that a priest is going to be hearing confessions on specific days at specific times, and he honors the schedule (i.e., if they can be confident that he will indeed be in the confessional when he said he would, so they won’t make a wasted trip), they do in fact come. Yes, it does sound a bit “Field of Dreams”-ish, but there it is.

“Which again calls into question the inscrutable wisdom of the venerable cardinals who elected a 76 year old man with one lung; who speaks no other languages than spanish and italian; who was, by any practical standard, a failure as a diocesan ordinary.”

I know.. Francis has just been awful for the Church. I simply hate the rash of positive stories and the overflowing attendance at Masses. (Like the 3million+ people at his Rio Mass this morning.)

“That would be Joey Red-Shoes, his predecessor.”

For such a brilliant theologian, Benedict was certainly gaffe-prone. Compare some of Benedict’s trips to the incredibly successful one that Francis is currently wrapping up. In fact, on his Brazil trip, Benedict made one of his gaffe speeches. There is something to be said for street smarts vs. book smarts in this case. Francis has quite a high EQ and is an incredibly savvy politician and that has served him well so far.

As for what the Pope is getting at, I think that there is too much arguing about minutia. There are actually blogs devoted to arguing about altar arrangements, etc. What Francis is driving home is that this is alienating to most people who see religion as a mainly emotional encounter. People want a close personal relationship with God. They want a community that cares about them.. cries about their problems and cheers their successes. That is why Evangelical megachurches are so popular.. practical advice in a community and emotional encounters with God.

MH, I’ve heard there is a site called godhatesfigs.com. But I’ve always preferred godhatesshrimp.com, a more focused appeal for consistency in applying Leviticus and Deuteronomy to daily life. The only thing hotter than the oil cooking the shrimp at Popeyes is the fires of hell.

I think the issue may be related to quality as much as a general loss of faith among the general public. Yo the extent that the Catholic faith and practice is unable to provide or be available to foster an individual deep relationship to Christ — people are going to gravitate to smaller congregational forums of a more intimate nature.

I think this Pope is leaning in the direction of a personal Christ, but to the extent that it supports a theology which challenges a states right to have an identifty — I am leary

I don’t think he’s saying “we need less doctrine” when you look at his remarks in the whole speech. He talks about the disciples from emaeus, and how they encounter the mysterious Christ and then go back to tell the disciples. I think Francis thinks the Church has answers to the darkness and loneliness that those disciples faced but that the Church needs to go out and meet them, to bring them the answers. This requires more than simply having theological answers available in writings (as the church does) but to go out and bring those answers to the people in a way they understand. This means not only simplifying the language for people not trained in philosophy but also living out the ideas in a language of love.

I’m finding myself drawn to the Catholic Church for the reasons many people seem to be repulsed by it.

I’m in my early 30s. I was raised Protestant in the Appalachians. I was exposed to the cheesy praise bands, the tedious hour and a half long sermons from ill-trained country pastors or untrained laypeople, and, when I attneded Pentecostal Churches, the speaking in tongues / “holy rolling.” Maybe it was just the Evangelical / Pentecostal Churches that I attended- maybe others are better- but by the time I was 14, I wanted nothing more to do with it. I’ve been agnostic / atheist ever since.

However, I have started attending Mass with my wife and daughter lately. Much to my own immense surprise, I’m finding that my hard bitten agnosticism / atheism is fading in favor of Catholicism.

We’re in a fairly conservative suburban Virginia parish, one that offers a Latin Mass (but not a Tridentine Mass). I’m finding that the Catholic Church offers what I found lacking. For me it is more cerebral, yet more spiritual, than what I encountered in my upbringing. The Doctrine is developed and considered, and you can find learned writings on practically any issue. Yet paradoxically, the Mass, with its focus on the Eucharist, the ceremony, the explicit references of the “mysteries of faith,” and the smells & bells appeals to my spirituality more than the Protestant services I attended. Moreover, in contrast to some of the churches I’ve attended, the Church doesn’t treat science or education as enemies.

I know that the Church has had major problems with corruption & sex abuse (and it’s a reason that I still haven’t been convinced to open my wallet nearly as much as I’ve opened my mind), but, faced with the decision of whether to cast my lot with the mainstream modern post-Western culture, I’m more tempted to stand with the Church.

In that vein, I think that the Church needs to find the balance between change and tradition. It needs to reach out to people, but it cannot do that at the expense of what makes it Catholic and special. It needs to present a third way between modern consumerist culture and simple-minded fundamentalism.

Maybe I’m an outlier, but I think changing to become more Pentecostal would be a colossal mistake. Why should the Pentecostals come back to the Church if the Church doesn’t offer anything different? Meanwhile, doing so would drive away people who appreciate the Catholic Church for what it is and has been.

Anyone who has any idea of the amount of physical space 3 million people would take knows that the number is ridiculously inflated, but the folks who pretend to count the size of crowds do that sort of thing all the time so it is no big deal.

There is no such thing as a perfect church or perfect worship syle. There is no magic bullet that will restore a particular branch of Christianity to a priviliged place in western society. There are only individuals and faith communities trying to live their faith in the best way they know how. These debates would be better served if we were all less judgmental and self righteous in condemning the flaws we perceive in other faith communities. To riff on Mark Twain, nothing needs reforming so much as someone else’s religion.

It sounds like we had a similar upbringing. I’ve been Catholic for eight years now and I pray that some day you too will be received into the Church. But yeah, whenever I hear anyone say the Church is too cerebral, too distant, too splendiferous, too triumphalist, too arrogant, too ostentatious, too combative, too rigid, too dogmatic I always quip “Hey buddy, some of us signed up because of that stuff.”

Re: Actually, in my observation (admittedly an unrepresentative sample), if people know that a priest is going to be hearing confessions on specific days at specific times, and he honors the schedule (i.e., if they can be confident that he will indeed be in the confessional when he said he would, so they won’t make a wasted trip), they do in fact come.

At my church confession is heard before the Liturgy, and the priest is always there at least an hour early. But outside of Lent it’s unusual for anyone to seek him out for confession.

Are the Pope’s remarks about rigidity, intellectualism, and legalism such a shock? This is the same Pope who called a group of faithful who prayed a spiritual bouquet of Rosaries for his sake, “Pelagians.”

The Catholic Church is losing adherents all over Latin America, not just in the Diocese of Buenos Aires. to the extent it’s doing worse in Argentina than elsewhere, that has likely very little to do with Francis and his pastoral skills, and everything to do with the way the church lost its moral authority when it sided (largely) with the military regime

Hi Hector,

I think it’s fair to say that the Church is losing adherents (nearly) everywhere. My point is that Francis had the opportunity — for over a decade — to put his philosophy to work in the Church of Buenos Aires and, at that micro level, it was not successful. Indeed, by any objective standard it was a failure.

Why, then, people would think that his “emancipated” style and 1970s prescriptions for “renewal” will lead to success at the macro level of the Universal Church is, hmmm, perplexing.

Andrew, in fairness, here’s the quote, my emphasis (the ellipses are in all the versions I can find, but we’ll have to make do):

An anecdote, just to illustrate this, it is not to laugh at it, I took it with respect, but it concerns me; when I was elected, I received a letter from one of these groups, and they said: “Your Holiness, we offer you this spiritual treasure: 3,525 rosaries.” Why don’t they say, ‘we pray for you, we ask…’, but this thing of counting….

He’s not trying to insult people, or denigrate the Rosary, or saying people shouldn’t pray for him; he’s saying that “chalking up” prayer after prayer risks turning into a sort of mechanistic formalism, however well-intended.

At my church confession is heard before the Liturgy, and the priest is always there at least an hour early. But outside of Lent it’s unusual for anyone to seek him out for confession.

Could that be a difference (in customary practice, presumably, rather than theology) between Catholicism and Orthodoxy? I don’t know; I’m asking. In many Catholic parishes it’s customary for the priest to hear Confessions at least one or two stated hours a week which don’t necessarily coincide with Mass times. Sat. afternoon is popular. At some parishes the priests do hear Confessions for a half hour or so before the start of Mass. And these Confession schedules are year-round, though often extra hours for Confession are added during Lent and sometimes Advent as well.

And priests who are known for honoring their advertised hours for Confession tend to get people showing up.

When I was growing up, my mother trooped us all down to the parish for Confession once every three months. If we wanted to go more often, all well and good.

At my church confession is heard before the Liturgy, and the priest is always there at least an hour early. But outside of Lent it’s unusual for anyone to seek him out for confession.

Interesting. Our parish’s practice is that confessions are heard after Vigil on Saturdays and before Liturgy on Sundays, and there’s always at least a few.

The larger issue this thread raises is the problem of integrating faith into our lives. We like to say that Orthodoxy is a lifestyle; it’s been ages since I’ve heard any Catholic claim anything close to that. In part that’s a reflection of Catholic praxis having been so soft-pedaled to the point that it is coasting.

Indeed, this also seems to be a problem for many Protestant churches…some of which no longer have services on Christmas Day so as not to compete with family holiday plans.

Integrating faith into our daily lives is the challenge the Churches are failing in this hyper-connected electronic age.

Clericalism has many forms as you know all too well, and I think Francis wants to give it a death blow above all else, to say, what are we about, because as we’ve seen clericalism is on the right and the left, and it’s about power, and control, Francis wants to blow this up, and if that means orthodoxy is is occasionally compromised, than he’s willing to take that risk, and I support him in this gamble. Because we should be about warming hearts with the love of Jesus first, and then Jesus will take them to a place of correct theology

We all know the story of the Pilgrim from “The Way of a Pilgrim.” (A short read if you haven’t.)

There was a young man who, inspired by “The Way of a Pilgrim,” set out to say the Jesus Prayer 1000 times in a day. Something always interrupted him…sometimes his own thoughts, but just as often it was something else, a neighbor’s coughing, a siren in the distance, noise from the neighborhood.

One day he got to 987 Jesus Prayers, and just knew that he was going to make it when someone started ringing his doorbell. He ignored the first, second and third rings as he got to 992, but the ringing became so insistent he got distracted. He went to the door and flung it open screaming “WHAT DO YOU WANT? YOU’VE RUINED MY PRAYER!!!”

Perhaps Francis had something like this story in mind when commenting on the practice of making a specific number of prayers the goal of one’s prayer.

“I think it’s fair to say that the Church is losing adherents (nearly) everywhere. My point is that Francis had the opportunity — for over a decade — to put his philosophy to work in the Church of Buenos Aires and, at that micro level, it was not successful. Indeed, by any objective standard it was a failure.

Why, then, people would think that his “emancipated” style and 1970s prescriptions for “renewal” will lead to success at the macro level of the Universal Church is, hmmm, perplexing.”

The traditional Church in Argentina is known for its ardent support of the Videla and the military dictators. There were actually priests blessing the pilots before they went off to drop people into the Atlantic. Traditional Catholicism in Argentina is very influenced by the SSPX and is very authoritarian and anti-Semitic. In fact, the odious, misogynist, Holocaust denying bishop who was associated with the SSPX, Richard Williamson, was hanging out in Argentina for awhile. I don’t have any Bergoglio quotes about this, but I’m sure that he was likely sad and disgusted by the Williamson incident. So that is the background with Bergoglio and tradition. Frankly, given the exclusive background of the traditional Church in Argentina (aka an institution of the rich and powerful that helped oppress and kill the poor) perhaps without Bergoglio and his strong sense of social justice and pastoral presence, the Church in Argentina would be in even worse shape.

Thanks for your response. Kag1982 says more or less what I would want to say, but more eloquently. In short, Francis/Bergoglio’s tenure in Buenos Aires was only a failure if the decline in attendance was greater than the norm for Argentina, or for Latin America. do you have evidence that it was?